Enabling freelance designers in Macmillan Education to upload and access cover designs anytime from anywhere on any device

The Background

Macmillan Education (ME) is a global publisher operating in more than 50 countries worldwide. ME have close relationships with students, teachers, institutions and educational authorities spanning Language Learning, Schools Curriculum and Higher Education so from pre-primary through to adult learners and business professionals. The product range is diverse from traditional print publishing, to digital products through to services for students and teachers.

Ribbonfish developed and implemented a publishing system and CRM solution for ME in 2008 and more recently were asked to provide a covers portal for freelance designers to upload and access their book jackets.

The problem

The driver for ME was to increase sales by the efficient capture and dissemination of cover images to the market place. This would be achieved by unified processes across the division and a simple but effective technical solution.

Front cover images are essential for marketing books and digital products in advance of publication. These images were not stored centrally for ME but instead there were disparate processes and workflows in place across the division. This became very inefficient and there was no facility for freelance designers on the move to upload their images and no facility for remote sales reps to capture them. This led to frustrations at both ends of the workflow and a breakdown in productivity.

The Solution

ME commissioned Ribbonfish to create a Covers Portal. No job is too small and Ribbonfish worked in partnership with the designers and reps and development was rapid and provided:

Unified processes and workflows

One central source for all covers

Easy upload process for remote designers

Effective search and navigation

Easy download for Sales reps on the road

The outcome

A gap in the publishing process was plugged and ME now had a centralised process for uploading, storing, viewing, transforming and disseminating images. Processes had been simplified and streamlined and remote users could work from any device, anytime and anywhere creating efficiencies. Cover images were available in a timely fashion and disseminated out to the market well in advance of publication improving selling opportunities.